We see our empire breaking

and run from its sharp edges.

We are a thousand little lifeboats

and a thousand little kings.

In mostly silence, they watched the drill play itself out before them. Kalypso, watching Redford, learned how to spin the projection of the court, and tilt it, and just generally manipulate it on every axis. Sometimes he would pause it, slide it all around, slow it down even further, rolling the ball in and out of the shadow of Jaegerjaquez's holographic palm. Sometimes she would too, but while he stayed largely still and turned the sluggish replay over and over in his hand, Kalypso would pace the table, sometimes around to one side, leaning over, crouching down to view the diorama of the court from the level of the floor.

"You could do this all day, couldn't you?"

"No," she answered, honestly. "I'd get restless."

She still had the ball she'd taken from the gym, and sometimes she lifted it up to consider its curves or raised a hand to mirror Jaegerjaquez's angle or contact. Redford would watch her do this. She felt his gaze like a touch, but he never moved from his stool.

The banked heat of his Flare did not roll out between them to scald her. Kalypso kept waiting for it to lash outward, kept bracing for the chemical reaction that was guaranteed to flood her the moment that it happened, but it stayed quiet, inarguably present, but-contained.

Maybe it was the same characteristic of spirit that rendered him content to sit in here watching rather than meeting the challenge presented by his struggling hitter. A weakness in him, Kalypso thought, but…a weakness she could appreciate, off court. A Dominion who did not desire quite so potently was a Dominion with whom it was much, much easier to share a table in the dark.

Was that comfort worth having an unmotivated setter, though?

No. Honestly, no. It wasn't.

Kalypso ground her teeth.

A swift hiss of a little motor, and then light flooded in from the doorway. Redford glanced in that direction. Kalypso, for her part, froze, tensing, remembering all the moments previous when she could have rejected the seduction of the hologram table and just told Redford she needed his help to get back to her room. Now the die was cast again-another Dominion was entering the small, dark room, looming between her and the door.

"Ah-this is where you went, huh?"

Renji Abarai's shadow fell over the table as he came to stand opposite Kalypso at the end closest to the door. His words were apparently for her, much to Kalypso's chagrin. She had nothing to say to that question-its answer was obvious, after all. Because some kind of acknowledgement was clearly expected, she gave him a nod and pointedly returned her attention to the table.

"How's it looking?"

Happily, this one didn't appear to be directed at her, because Redford answered immediately. "Better than this morning. You caught up with all of 'em?"

"I mean," said Abarai, rather pointedly.

Redford waved a dismissive hand at that. "Yeah, you got a click of the tongue and maybe some muttered filth outta that one, sure-the other two, then."

"Duibhne's ready to kill…somebody. Not sure who. Jaegerjaquez is the fairest bet, but…"

Kalypso did not need to be here listening to this. They were talking like she was invisible, which was preferable to talking to her, all told. She took a slow, unobtrusive step back from the table, running through her options. Redford was clearly playing nice-which made her really not want to owe him. Abarai had business on the mind, though, and might be bitter about being interrupted, especially if-

"Cu Chulainn had good things to say about you." Goosebumps broke out along her arms as Abarai's words and attention slid back to her. "You angling for libero, then?"

"You should watch this before it gets wiped," Redford said to him, tapping the table to pause the current drill, the set hanging halfway to Jaegerjaquez's chambered approach. "Duibhne's mad, huh? Thoughts on why, Ixora?"

Which question was she supposed to prioritize? This had the feel of some stupid Dominion dick-measuring contest; one asks a question and the other instantly asks an unrelated one, to see which one she turned toward, which one she appeased first. "Doesn't matter," she said, answering both, and by sheer luck able to be honest for both, too.

"Eh?"

"Apologies," said Redford smoothly, and Kalypso recognized that he'd decided to bulldoze through this moment and deny her whatever evasion she was trying to orchestrate. "We don't intend to make you tense, not about the…interpersonals. Nevermind about Duibhne." He tilted his head toward Abarai in tacit invitation.

Okay, so this was complicated dick-measuring then. Kalypso elected not to bother trying to decode this particular power struggle, if that's what it was.

Rather than wait for them to reframe their questions into some new trap, she said, "It doesn't matter to me what I play."

Abarai set a hand on his hip, and tapped the table with his other hand to resume the holographic drill. Then he leaned forward onto that hand, watching as Jaegerjaquez hit a hard cross into Kalypso's waiting arms. "Nice pass. What's, uh, what's Duibhne blocking there?"

"You tell me," muttered Kalypso, before she could stop herself.

Redford and Abarai both blinked, then glanced at each other. "Well, then," said Redford, an eyebrow rising. "You said something to him about it, did you?"

"I asked him to run it like a one-man block instead of an imaginary two-man that's giving up line. He didn't want to." Now more than one eyebrow was raised at her. No Flares-but she did take a bit of issue with those looks even if they weren't raining hungry chemistry on her with them. "I didn't dress him down about it. He didn't want to, I dropped it, drill went on."

"I see," said Redford.

"So that's what you were doing? Jumping from side to side while the middle-court was blocked out? Yeesh." Abarai was studying the table now while Redford's measured eye lingered stingingly on her.

Kalypso was more than a bit relieved that the other middle on the team could look at Duibhne in this drill and say 'yeesh'. That meant, hypothetically, if it had been Abarai up there at net instead of that perfect, silky-smooth poisonous automaton, there might have been more dynamism involved.

Careful, now, careful, little lamb-riddled fool. Kalypso checked her hope hard before it could bud into anything she'd soon regret. This man in front of her, tall, broad, hard-eyed and, she reminded herself, wearing the pelt of a thing that died for his sport and pleasure, was just as much a Dominion as the rest of them-and just as likely to make certain she remembered it. If it had been him at the net, then it would have been him stalking closer to her in the lightless black of the dead court afterward. Same for Redford-it could have been him instead of Cu Chulainn gliding toward the net and driving her backward into Jaegerjaquez's reach.

"Tomorrow," Abarai was saying, "let's get Axel roped in and call dibs on extra court time. We can repeat this, opposite side. Rotate roles, if you want, get you and Axel both swinging."

"You're really leaning on that, huh?" observed Redford, his eye sliding from Kalypso to Abarai now.

A little bit of chemistry caught on her skin, a little arrhythmic stutter in her chest, when Abarai's mouth twitched downward. "Too much to hope for otherwise, ain't it?"

"Dunno," said Redford, with a certain air of finality. "You'd have to ask her."

Ooh. She did not like the sound of that. Nope. Whatever it was, no thanks, do not, in fact, ask her, please and thank you.

But clearly Abarai was not someone who stopped short of a hungry thought, not even when he himself was thinking better of the idea and had another Dominion revving up at his back to boot. That's what was happening, Kalypso saw with mounting trepidation-the tall redhead was squaring his shoulders, and Redford was setting his chin back into the palm of his hand, watching, the low-burn Flare he'd sustained all this time sweeping outward now, a quiet silent heat rolling across the floor like the first wave of fire across an oil-soaked rug.

This was a moment she did not want to happen. Whatever was about to come out of Abarai's mouth, it would carry consequences that she didn't even understand yet, that they hadn't given her time to feel out, to grasp, to calculate.

"How are you at hitting outside, Ixora?"

Tilts.

Easily bored, disengages with setter.

Cu Chulainn trailing after a furious hitter. Duibhne scanning the room and placing his bets. Redford sitting in here, watching them struggle to get their outside to hit in-bounds. Abarai feeling out those two afterward and coming straight to his setter to report. That vicious firestorm of Flares she'd walked into first thing, between Redford and their other outside hitter, the one with the coin-eyes and the presence like murder.

There were, with her, eight of them, after all.

Kalypso was forced to reassess Redford's choice to sit in here instead of joining that drill. It wasn't quite as simple as a Dominion's schadenfreude overtop a lack of ambition. It was a calculated drawing of lines. This team-ha, clearly that was the wrong word for this collection of egos-was fracturing into factions. Everyone was picking sides.

Jaegerjaquez had tilted, and shown he couldn't right himself without outside intervention. Yang had, apparently, spat in Redford's face. In response, Abarai was standing here offering her one of their heads on a platter-if, of course, she was equal to the task.

Which would make her at least one Dominion enemy.

Eyes like golden-coins, devouring her on sight. Hot, cruel fingers snarling through her hair. They were, possibly, based on first impressions and yes, on chemical response as well, the two most dangerous choices for her to usurp. That aside, quite frankly, outside was one of her weaker technical positions. Better than middle, perhaps, but all else being equal, she would be a far bigger asset as basically anything else.

"I told you," Kalypso said. "I'll play anything."

It wasn't like she was picking their side. It was, simply, that whoever was playing, she would be in there, amidst them, playing too. She doubted she'd get a vote on who they carved out of their formation; that neither surprised nor disappointed her. She'd never harbored any illusions otherwise.

Redford's grin flashed out like lightning, blinding and faster than anyone could brace for. "Then we'll be seeing you tomorrow on the court, Ixora. You can hit whatever you fancy."

A satisfied Dominion always grated. It generally wasn't really their fault; it was just her own stubborn rejection of her chemistry, which was even now rippling through her skin and heating up her blood and insisting that she blush and stare and creep closer to do some worshipful cuddling. When Dominions got what they wanted, she got a flood of involuntary feelings that she hadn't asked for and they hadn't earned-not from her, at least-and that made her bitter.

Right now, it grated more than usual. So she'd given him an honest answer, he'd interpreted it in a manner that suited him best, accepted it as his rightful due, and was now offering headpats?

Kalypso clamped down on that resentment before it could creep onto her face. He'd gotten what he wanted, yes, but in so doing she had also gotten what she wanted. Tomorrow, there would be team practice of some kind, and then afterward, there would be more. That's what she was here for. That's all that mattered. Sure, yes, whatever, any of them could have her on their cute little faction roster if it meant she could play more.

The sound of the door opening and the sudden assault of fresh light from beyond made her take another cautious step back. Who now? She really needed to get out of here, get away from the suffocating siege of Dominions, especially since she'd locked in extra time on the court tomorrow. If she vanished now, nothing about her presence would complicate that plan, and if forces beyond her control decided to rip it apart-the thought made her bite that sore abused patch of her cheek again-at least she wouldn't have to ride out the Flares.

"Still out here, Kalypso?" Axel Lea stepped into the room, his green eyes going first to her before anything else, even though she'd slid back into the shadows out of the light from the door and the holograms. Damned Dominions. "Did nobody help you with your door?"

"Eh?"

"Huh?"

Twinned sounds of confusion from Redford and Abarai, and humiliating though it was, Kalypso seized that proffered escape with both hands and all her teeth. "I'll take you up on it," she said, and began a march toward Axel and the doorway he was standing in with all the grim intention of a soldier on a suicide charge.

Three things happened at once: the holograms above the table flickered out, a massive wall-screen at her back hummed to life, casting gray shadows of chairs and men and the table and herself on the walls, and a familiar voice spoke from speakers embedded somewhere in high corners.

"You've waited this long to shower, Ixora. You'll wait another half hour. Asses in seats, the lot of you."

The fourth thing, the real sinking-feeling thing, happened when Axel stepped inside and was followed by all the remaining Dominions in the facility. They came in slow and thunderous, taking up places around the room that had clearly become habit-Cu Chulainn, hands folded on top of his head, crooked grin and drill-bit eyes both gleaming, Diarmuid ua Duibhne, shaking back his darkly poisonous hair and taking in Redford's cheer with narrowed eyes, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, slouching in with hands in his pockets, jawbone mask grinding. And Yang. That's what they'd called him. Yang came in with his Flare already steaming from his shoulders.

Immediately, sickly auras bloomed on the edges of Kalypso's vision-forget half an hour, this was going to give her a headache in the first two minutes.

Xigbar's golden eye regarded them all from the massive screen. The fucking team meeting, that's what this was. Kalypso could think of very little she'd hate doing more, much less in present company. But fine. That's what this was gonna be like, huh? Fine.

Kalypso found herself a bit of the wall as far as possible from anyone else, pressed her back to it, and-this was weak, but there were times for pride and this was not one of them-slid down it into a little tight-curled knot on the floor, ready to wait this one out. Just like a good, quiet little Lamb should do.